Death of influential Ali Larijani could be bigger loss to Iran than Khamenei

Security chief’s huge influence on many levels of Iranian politics and abroad will make his killing devastating

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Israel’s assassination of Ali Larijani, the secretary of Iran’s supreme national security council and one of the linchpins of Iranian politics, will be a devastating body blow to the country and probably a bigger reverse than the loss of the supreme leader Ali Khamenei at the outset of the war.

Larijani would always have been a prime target in any attempt to decapitate the Iranian leadership, largely because of his ability to straddle so many levels of politics and his huge personal influence not just in Iran but with foreign states including China and Russia.